WMO: 2013 among the ten warmest years on record

The year 2013 is on course to becoming the seventh-warmest year since climate records began in 1850. The average surface temperature during January to September has been 0.48 degrees Celsius above the 1961-1990 average, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s provisional State of the Climate report, released today.  Read more

United Nations embraces science’s best minds

United Nations embraces science's best minds

Just another talking club or a genuine attempt to give science more weight in policy matters of global importance? Time will tell if the United Nations’ newly created Scientific Advisory Board whose members were announced last week, will indeed influence the business of international policy-making in practice.  Read more

Management row threatens to blow Sahara solar dream

Plans to supply Europe with electricity generated in North Africa suffered another blow this week when the DESERTEC Foundation, set up in 2009 to promote the idea, pulled out of the industrial consortium which is trying to advance the €400 billion project.  Read more

Russian Academy gets temporary reprieve

The Russian Academy of Science is to be axed

The Russian Academy of Sciences, threatened with liquidation, has been granted a temporary reprieve. The Duma – the Russian Parliament – agreed today to postpone until October its final vote on a bill that some feel will mark the end of the academy, founded in 1724 by Peter the Great.  Read more

Russian meteor blast was the largest ever recorded by CTBTO

The blast on 15 February over the Urals Mountains of a fireball that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the Kazakh-Russian border was the largest explosion ever recorded by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CNTBTO), according to the first detailed analysis of the event.  Read more